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Raikes Replacement: Why Go Outside?

It's extremely interesting that Microsoft went all the way to Juniper Networks for a successor to long-timer Jeff Raikes.

Raikes -- the president of Microsoft Business Division, home of Office, SharePoint, and the-struggling-but-no-doubt-still-strategic Microsoft Business Solutions -- is transitioning out of the company and Juniper exec Stephen Elop will be the new MBD go-to guy. (Before the calls start, let me just say that "struggling" in this instance is a relative term.)

Lemme think: Raikes' current direct reports include MBS chief Kiril Tatarinov; Office whiz Chris Capossela; Live services guy Rajesh Jha; unified comms chiefGurdeep Singh Pall. There are no doubt more—where's that Directions On Microsoft org chart when you need it? Still, as Mini-Microsoft asks: why go outside if the company is so great at grooming in house talent?

Also, it's interesting that Bob Muglia and his server & tools gang is now moving out of MBD and will report into CEO Steve Ballmer. This is almost more interesting than when Microsoft moved Muglia et al. over to MBD in the first place last May.

That migration was seen as the last in a series of encroachments by the Office-laden MBD into Microsoft's server-and-OS turf. The business group had already snarfed up SharePoint, most of Exchange Server, and Content Management Server over to their side of the house as part of transforming Office from a mostly client-side effort to more of a client-and-server juggernaut.